Hull clip Derby's runaway heels with injection of fresh old legs

Sunday 11 February 2007 21.08 EST
First published on Sunday 11 February 2007 21.08 EST

When Phil Brown unleashed two substitutes - combined age 70 - in Dean Windass and Ray Parlour just past the hour it appeared the act of a desperate man. And, even if Hull City then secured a highly improbable draw without the duo's direct involvement, the veterans feel they made their point.

Like Brown, returning to the club who sacked him just over a year ago, Windass is relishing the difficult challenge with Hull. This is familiar territory for the abrasive 37-year-old, back at his home-town club, but less so for Parlour, who had never played outside the top flight, let alone been involved in a relegation fight.

After 28 minutes' playing time in the Championship the 33-year-old Parlour has no regrets other than missing a chance to equalise, badly scuffing his shot, before Dave Livermore did the trick for Hull to deny Derby a ninth successive win and lift themselves out of the bottom three.

Parlour cheerfully admitted that he had three options in front of goal and still chose the worst after the ball rebounded to him with Stephen Bywater stranded. The former England midfielder's effort was neither powerful nor placed and Stephen Pearson blocked and cleared.

Parlour, once the epitome of the box-to-box player with Arsenal, knew his career was running down at Middlesbrough through a combination of injuries and the manager Gareth Southgate's need for fresher legs in midfield and his move, just before deadline, is on a pay-per-play basis. "I've had a few knocks and injuries in the last few months and who knows how long my legs are going to hold out?" he said. "If I don't play I don't get paid. If my leg goes next week, then that's it for me. I'm probably going to train a lot with Arsenal. I've got a good agreement with the club which we are all happy with. I'll be at Hull a couple of days before a game. I feel very fit and I will get fitter with games. I haven't played for three or four months."

Despite Parlour's miss and Hull's tenacity, Billy Davies could scarcely have anticipated Livermore's late equaliser, crisply volleyed home from Sam Ricketts' cross. January's manager of the month is the master of the close win - five successive one-nils before Saturday - and hid his disappointment well, not least at failing to equal Brian Clough's club record of nine successive victories in the 1968-69 promotion season. Brown called the current team "champions elect" but Davies dared not go that far. "It evens itself out," he said. "We've scored some late goals ourselves. We've got to be realistic; we know things will chop and change."

Brown is on a thin budget compared with the one that enabled Davies to bring in seven players last month. Yet the disparity in resources rarely showed and the luck that favours the successful appeared to be ushering Derby to another victory, not least when they hacked clear three times to launch a counter-attack in which Gary Teale slid home Pearson's cross.

After Andy Dawson levelled with a 25-yard free-kick Derby's first concession in 512 minutes, Darren Moore could scarcely believe his fortune when he headed gently in amid a motionless Hull defence.